Verifiable Credentials (VC)
Verifiable credentials are cryptographically signed digital attestations defined by the W3C VC data model — an issuer signs claims about a holder, and a verifier can check authenticity and integrity without contacting the issuer.
The issuer–holder–verifier model
A VC is a tamper-evident JSON document: claims about a subject, issuer metadata, and a cryptographic proof. The issuer signs and delivers it to the holder’s wallet; the holder presents it (or a subset of it) to a verifier, who resolves the issuer’s key — typically via a DID — and verifies the signature offline. That decoupling is the point: verification scales without a call-back to the issuer.
Modern deployments add two refinements: selective disclosure (SD-JWT VC, BBS proofs) lets holders reveal only requested attributes, and trust chains anchor issuers to accreditation — in EBSI’s model, from the credential up through trusted accreditation organizations to a root trust anchor, so a verifier can establish that the issuer was authorized to issue this type of credential.
Where it is used
VCs are the credential format behind the EUDI Wallet, EBSI’s diploma and identity pilots, and enterprise use cases like employee credentials, supplier certifications, and KYC re-use. Our work on EBSI trust-chain verification and the DID/VC support in Stellar Go CLI are practical examples of the stack in production.
Related Standards
- •W3C Verifiable Credentials Data Model 1.1 / 2.0
- •W3C Decentralized Identifiers (DID) Core
- •SD-JWT VC — IETF selective-disclosure format
Further Reading
Products & Services
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